Opera browser/Talk

Okay, first off, I find it rather NPOV to start talking about source availability in the first paragraph. It _may_ be relevant to mention it, but not much.

Furthermore, Internet Explorer was _not_ dominant when development of the Opera browser began. I'm not even sure wheter Internet Explorer _Existed_ at the time the development started. IE had a minimal marketshare when Opera was released, and Netscape was the Major competitor.

And, the relatively low marketshare. Well, heh, its kinda difficult to find out that a person is running Opera, if he doesdn't configure it to identify itself as it specifically. Opera defaults to identifying itself as Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows. You can see the amount of people that _specifically_ has changed the settings, but you cannot see how many actually uses it.

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1) Source availability is relevant to millions of users who either want to enjoy the benefits of open source passively or actively work on the code. For any software I find source availability as much relevant to list as, for example, system requirements. Don't use NPOV as a killer phrase -- your POV is no more or less neutral than mine, we just happen to disagree.

2) While you are correct that IE was not yet relevant in 1996, its market share dropped rather quickly in the months after Opera's first release, see: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/14.pdf - still, the paragraph could perhaps be reworded. - reworded now.

3) Good point, I wanted to add that but forgot about it. I will do so right now. -done- Question to some other Opera user: Can anyone confirm that Opera identifies as IE by default? In my installation, it identifies as Opera, but I'm not sure if I have changed it.

Consider it confirmed. Opera 5.X and 6.0 identify themselves as MSIE 5.0 by default. I'm pretty sure earlier versions defaulted to MSIE or Mozilla. --STG

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1) Then I expect that for every program one writes about, we'll start adding into the opening paragraph wheter sourcecode is available or not. Quite frankly, that would be _quite pointless_. Adding about that in the opening paragraph _stinks_ NPOV for me. I sure as hell want Open Source too, that is one of the reasons I'm using Galeon. But starting a lexicon article with it .. heh, its as stupid as the first paragraph about Norway . :-)

3) I cannot say about the windows version, but I can confirm it for the linux version. :) --arcade

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1) Yes, adding the status of source code to any program info may be useful, but with non-cross-platform Windows programs the general assumption is that they are closed source, so it may be sufficient to simply list notable exceptions from this rule here (e.g. Mozilla, Open Office, AbiWord). However, the Linux software pool, for example, is becoming increasingly hybrid when it comes to source availability, so the importance of the distinction grows.

3) Yes, but I'd like to get some independent confirmation. If nobody adds anything until tomorrow I'll mail the Opera folks, perhaps they can also give info on how this behavior has changed over the releases. -- just noticed STG's confirmation, so it may be sufficient to add to the article.